Fantasy Baseball Advice

Yes, that’s a fantastic neck curtain I’m rockin’. Besides the point. Don’t stare. What this IS is (who you callin’ stutterer?) an attempt to translate some nerd speak into some useful fantasy baseball draft strategy.

More statistically-inclined minds than my own (mainly a guy with the handle “matthan” at DRaysBay) have figured out a pretty reliable way to calculate expected Ks from pitchers. “Tell us something we don’t know, Dick Anderson.” Okay, how about the coefficient of determination for this particular model is over 90%? *crickets* Considering most number crunchers take 70% and like it, 90% is like jumping-a-dead-battery-with-aspirin-and-chocolate useful. Oh, and it’s reliable like that down to 30 IP. That’s door-breaching-charge-out-of-steel-wool-and-a-fountain-pen exciting!

Here’s the formula: eK%=(ClStr%*.9)+(Foul%*.5)+(InPly%*-.9)+(InZSwStr%*1.1)+(OZSwStr%*1.5)

So why aren’t we reading about this magical formula all over the place? Well, it’s a trip to the dentist to compile the holey data and it uses wisps of cotton-candy-fuzzy math. Regardless, it’s fairly reliable if you floss through it and definitely useful despite the caveats. Having said that, I now say it’s crazy talk to produce something this potentially powerful, then shelve it. That’s like developing an armor-piercing laser, but scrapping it because it’s a smidgen inaccurate and only works a good chunk of the time. There’s still potential for making some big holes in stuff here!

I admit, I do possess some nerd genes and I’ve read through the boring stuff. That doesn’t mean YOU (yeah, you too, I suppose) should have to though, loyal Razzball readers. So what do we do with it then? For one, we can look at actual Ks from pitchers in 2011 vs. their expected Ks based on this formula. That ought to help tell us, in part, who was sandbaggin’ and who was overachievin’. I’ve arranged the numbers so positive is positive and negative is negative (fancy that). I’ve cherry picked players I wanted to highlight and to avoid some of the stat goofs. If you want to check out any others, you can sift through all the source data like I did. I’ve shown my work on a separate sheet, just like in math class.

This part is obligatory, really boring stuff. If you just want to get to the the T & A, skip this section. Just don’t ask questions that are answered here, because then you’ll be “that guy”.

A few players showed up one one set of source data and not the other, or repeated exactly within the same source data, so I’ve eliminated those.
Lists only include players who had 30+ IP for one specific team, not over several teams combined.
A few SP show up on the list multiple times due to having 30+ IP for multiple teams.
Data is split between SP and RP, so players should only be credited with stats for one role or the other per each list, respectively.
Some of the data is skewed by differences in pitch counts, spot starts by RP, relief appearances by SP, trades, and/or other statistical errors between sources.
References:
FanGraphs
Stat Corner
DRaysBay

If you’d like to peruse the data for your favorite players, check out the full document here and comment below with questions. Thanks for reading!

SP Sandbaggers (eK% / K% / K% Diff):

Randall Delgado – 18.0 / 12.2 / 5.8
He represents the biggest difference, postive or negative. Control remained an issue and he was pretty lucky with a .220 BABIP and 86.5 LOB%. However, if he can manage to tack down more first pitch strikes and harness some BBs, he could rein in even more upside. He and everybody else… If he ends up in the majors over Minor/Teheran, I certainly wouldn’t expect a Beachy-like season. I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Minor’s-minors-like season either.

Guillermo Moscoso – 17.9 / 13.9 / 4.0
He should have had enough Ks to place him slightly below the league average 7.13 K/9. However, he was fortunate hitters made enough bad contact (79.1 O-Contact%) to get themselves out when his control lapsed. There’s enough downside to spoil any upside, and the move to Coors won’t help. In the interest of manipulating time and space, let’s just pretend most of these schmohawks are invisible. Collmenter to Vargas: “Hey, can you believe that sh…”

Phil Hughes – 17.8 / 14.2 / 3.6
If you’re reading this (skimming counts), chances are you’ve been burned by Hughes at some point in your fantasy career. He dealt with injury and “hittability” last year, but showed flickers of that sweet, sweet flame. Sure there’s reason for concern, but he’s only 25 and here’s one more reason for optimism. There’s reasoning for ya. If he’s traded or somehow ends up Yanked back into the rotation despite the acquisitions of Pineda and Kuroda, keep the fire burning.

Shaun Marcum – 21.9 / 19.2 / 2.7
2.7% doesn’t sound like a whole lot, does it? However, at 200 IP and 823 batters faced, “U” should’ve been looking at about +20 K and +1 K/9. Yeah, Grey probably had good reason to like him so much. There isn’t much NOT to like about his numbers, so Marcum down for improvement.

Doug Fister – 17.4 / 14.8 / 2.6 (SEA), 20.8 / 20.9 / -0.1 (DET)
And here you thought Fister was fun to mention before? It looks like he had potential to get more guys to swing & miss, it just took the move to Detroit for him to capitalize more, and then some more on top of that. He’s likely to regress a little and his 17.2% slider usage might land him at the bottom fringe of Rudy’s Top 20 Risky Pitchers For 2012 list, but some of his stuff is legit. Welcome, fister+bottom+stuff Googlers!

Edinson Volquez – 23.8 / 21.3 / 2.5
Yes, he strikes dudes out. Yes, he walks them too. Yes, his consistent velocity and plate discipline, absurd 20.7 HR/FB%, and 1st inning ineptitude tell me some of his struggles were fluky. Yes, he will get less run support in SD. Yes, PETCO should help. Yes, he could pull a post-Dusty Harang-ment. Yes, I’m telling you to keep at least a lazy eye on him.

Jake Peavy – 21.6 / 19.3 / 2.3
Though some of his metrics looked like imperials and vice versa, there appears to be a millibigass (that’s a thousandth of a bigass) light at the end of the tunnel. But… and that’s a badonkadonkeykong-sized but… he needs to stay healthy long enough to get his conversion tables sorted out. Sometimes you don’t need standardized OR fanciful measurements to tell you what you should already know.

Jeremy Hellickson – 17.3 / 15.1 / 2.2
Bad news is, his K/9 was only 5.57. Good news is, it should have been about 6.4. “Wait, that’s good news?” Bad news is, his ERA/WHIP were artificially low. Good news is, the extra Ks should balance those out somewhat. “Some what?” Bad news is, he fits the risky pitcher bill. Bad news is, he’ll cost too much come draft time, regardless. “But…”. Yeah, I know good news was supposed to come next.

Danny Duffy – 20.6 / 18.4 / 2.2
On the other hand, I’m hoping this dude eventually ends up back in the rotation since he’s poised for a rebound. He’d been blowing everyone away up until his MLB debut (say that five times fast), and I don’t envision Duffman totally switching from blow to suck. Duff just didn’t trust his stuff. Know who else has had issues with nerves? His name rhymes with slinky… “Ohhh, yeahhh!”

Dan Haren – 22.0 / 20.1 / 1.9
Hairy Dan’s ratios got a little trim from a lower than normal HR/FB rate and BABIP, but his Ks should have been a little fuller. Ironically, his increased cutter use (+20.5% vs. 2010!) seems to be working, as his O-Swing% and O-Contact% go up as his Zone% goes down. All in all, y’all, he ought to retain comparable value. Did I get that “y’all” right, y’all?

Scott Baker – 24.2 / 22.3 / 1.9
Similarly, Baker’s Ks should’ve continued to rise while his ratios collapsed to an extent. Yep, even past his career high 8.22 K/9. It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly his secret ingredient was, but the measurements support it. He’s someone I would not sleep on in 2012, lest you get burned… or accused of assault. Don’t stand so close to me, space invader.

John Danks – 20.2 / 18.5 / 1.7
Danks refined his cutter to a lesser extent than Haren, but he also got more aggressive at pounding the zone and was actually a bit unlucky. There’s every reason to expect him to see both a bump in Ks AND a reduction in his ratios. It could have been more than a little if he’d been dealt, but Danks don’t stank.

There we have it, a Scott Baker dozen. There are about three times as many SP Sandbaggers than Overachievers (nope, no idea why and not too worried about it), so it’s time to move on before we get too bogged down in this shizzpile.

SP Overachievers (eK% / K% / K% Diff):

Clayton Kershaw – 24.7 / 27.2 / -2.7
Here I figured the opposite of Marcum was Mucram… CK won the CY, and deservedly so, but would he have won it with 23 less Ks and .9 less K/9? Probably. Just consider this gap, a smidgen of good fortune and his 25.5% slider use before you start wearing his cologne and get all reachy, reachy for him.

Zack Greinke – 26.1 / 28.1 / -2.0
Knocking his K/9 down to 9.8 from 10.5 isn’t a big deal in the context of a 7.96 career rate. He’s suffered bad luck from various sources the last two seasons, so there’s a chance his ratios rebound some too. However, his F-Strike% and Zone% dropped 2% and 7.5% during that time and a move to the NL. His stuff has bumped his O-Swing 5.1% to compensate, but reading between the percent signs, it might be more than nerves. My gut tells me not to invest too heavily for 2012. If you hear my gut too, hand me the Cracker Jack, will ya?

Ubaldo Jimenez -  – 20.3 / 22.2 / -1.9 (COL), 19.8 / 21.4 / -1.6 (CLE)
He was a bit less than fortunate both in COL and CLE, so his ratios should trend up. However, his velocity went down along with his GB%, F-Strike% and SwStr%. In short, I’m not expecting massive regrowth. Count on Big Jim too much and you could very well end up spending 2012 pulling out your hair, wondering “Why, Ubaldo?!”

Cliff Lee – 24.5 / 25.9 / -1.4
It’s like a freakin’ barbershop with all these cutters cropping up… er… down. The Adverb still would have bested his previous career high K/9 rate with about 10 less Ks and he’s capable of producing similar, though probab-Lee slight-Lee less spectacular numbers again. Of course, investing too much into last years numbers could easi-Lee end like another crusade for eternal youth; poor-Lee.

Next time, I’ll go over the relievers that should see an increase or decrease in Ks.  Until then, I will comb my mullet.

There’s not much left to do.  You’ve printed out the 2011 fantasy baseball rankings.  You’ve paid attention when I went over my fantasy baseball sleeper posts.  You even drew a mustache on your mirror so every time you look at yourself you look like me.  The only thing left for you is actually taking part in a fantasy baseball draft.  No sweat, you’ve been mock drafting for the last two months.  First few rounds fly by.  You’re cool with a capital Clooney.  Rounds 5 through 8 come and go.  Nothing to it!  You pack a bowl for yourself for your glaucoma and shotgun it into your cat’s face.  Round 9 comes and Pedro Alvarez and Aramis Ramirez are drafted right before you and now the first bead of sweat forms.  Where are all of the third basemen?

Suddenly, you’re burning up like you just chugged a bottle of Emeril’s Creole Seasoning.  Worse, you have cotton mouth and have no time to go to the sink.  Outside, it’s raining.  Then “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…” starts playing on loop in your head.  Over and over again like a Lady Gaga song chorus.  You look up at the draft timer and you have 30 seconds left.  You look at the reflection of yourself in your framed supposed-to-be-ironic poster that reads, “The glass is half empty, deal with it” and you begin to sob.  Not happy “I just won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar” sobs, but sad “Please let me out of your van; I don’t want my skin to be made into a suit” sobs.  With three seconds left, you draft Chris Johnson.

Immediately, everyone in the draft room begins to mock you.  Nice reach, I think Matt Stairs is still available for your corner!… Hey, I didn’t know Ed Wade’s toupee was drafting with us!…  You suck! And, with that, you open the window to your bedroom and jump out.  Luckily, you live on the first floor and only bruise your ankle.  You limp back through the house, ignore your Mom’s take-out-the-freakin’-garbage complaints, sit back down at your computer and zombie your way through the rest of the draft.  Only half paying attention because you know you screwed up the Johnson pick.

It was a reach.  You probably could’ve took Johnson a few rounds later.  But it’s not the ruination of your draft.  Reaching is a part of drafting.  If you’re not reaching for guys that you want then you might not know which guys you want.  You don’t want to reach every single round, but sometimes it’s not only appropriate but it’s necessary.  Wouldn’t you rather have a guy you want in the 9th round or a guy you don’t want in the 16th?  Draw an emoticon on your hand and learn to smile again.  It’ll be all right.

Head-to-Head, or H2H if you’re into abbreviations that look like R&B groups, doesn’t change a lot from our 2011 fantasy baseball rankings.  There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy.  There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe.  There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth.  Yet, there’s one Albert Pujols.  He’s still number one.  (Though Palbert Ujols on Planet Crimea is pretty good too.)  The strategy to play H2H changes.  You aren’t hoping Dunn hits 40 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit two homers on Sunday or if you should sit him to try and win steals.  It’s all about the match-ups, ya’ll!  So you want to build a team that can match up well with any other team.  (FYI, I’ve gone over this stuff before, but some might need a pine tree refresher hung from their rear view.)  Anyway, let’s look at some Head-to-Head fantasy baseball draft strategy:

1. Avoid guys that are prone to nagging injuries.

This is not to say a guy who is DL’d.  They go on the DL and that’s fine because then you can replace them.  Nagging injuries?  Whole different bailiwick.  You put Glass Chipper on an H2H team and you wanna strangle someone.  Hopefully, not the guy sitting behind you wearing biker shorts and eating an apple.  Go ahead, look behind you.  Yeah, that’s me.  What’s up?  Since H2H is played on a week-to-week basis, you can’t afford to take many goose eggs as a player nurses his hammy day-to-day.  BTW, I once nursed a hammy and everyone kept asking me why I was breastfeeding a pig.

2. Don’t punt anything, but don’t buy steal-only guys.

What’s Ellsbury or Crawford or Pierre et al going to get you?  2 steals per week?  They’re not going to win you steals.  So you’re going to get 3 steals from Ellsbury one week, your opponent is going to get 5 steals from his whole team and you’re going to lose steals anyway.  Or you’re not going to get anything from the aforementioned et al’s then you’re going to lose that week too.  You just lost two weeks and the season hasn’t even started yet.  See what those steal-only guys get you?  That doesn’t mean to punt these categories.  It means draft a balanced team.  Guys that will get you speed and power.  Then if the weekend rolls around and you’re within breathing distance of winning speed, you pick up some steals off waivers to try and win it.  If someone is going against you and you punt steals, then you’re giving them one category.  Are they giving you categories?  No offense, you seem like a good person, but I wouldn’t give you any categories.  There will be weeks when you’ll be out of the running for steals (pun point!) then you can make the decision to punt at that point (punt point!).

3. Starters, Starters, Starters…

If you can’t beat them with quality, you beat them with quantity.  Chances are you should be able to win Ks and Wins every week with this drafting strategy.  Then if you can win Saves, you’re only dealing with WHIP and ERA.  Figure at least once in a while your opponent is going to lose ERA or WHIP on their own doing.  Figure a few times you’ll win ERA and WHIP on your own doing.  So in roto I say take a late round flier on possible saves or a starter, with H2H, I say always take a starter.  Then another starter, then another.  Take them until you can’t take anymore.  This also means to wait even longer for starters.  Pretty self-explanatory, but for those who like self-explanatory things explained.  You don’t need a top starter when you’re throwing lots of junk out there anyway.

4. The Waivers are Your Oysters.

Don’t like Juan Rivera’s match-ups this week.  As Frida Kahlo used to say, hasta luego, Rivera.  I take this approach in roto too, but in H2H it’s even more pronounced.  Besides some of your top hitters and pitchers, everyone’s fluid.  To mix metaphors and sense, the waiver wire is your own personal Idaho filled with potatoes and you’re an Irishman.

H2H, Head-to-Head, whatever you want to call it doesn’t change a lot from our 2010 fantasy baseball rankings.  There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy.  There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe.  There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth.  Yet, there’s one Albert Pujols.  He’s still number one.  And so on and so forth.  The strategy to play H2H changes.  You aren’t hoping Dunn hits 40 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit two homers on Sunday or if you should sit him to try and win steals.  It’s all about the match-ups, ya’ll!  So you want to build a team that can match-up well with any other team.  Anyway, let’s look at some Head-to-Head fantasy baseball draft strategy:

1. Avoid guys that are prone to nagging injuries.

This is not to say a guy who is DL’d.  They go on DL and that’s fine cause then you can replace them.  Nagging injuries?  Whole different bailiwick.  You put Glass Chipper on an H2H team and you wanna strangle someone.  Hopefully, not the guy sitting behind you wearing biker shorts and eating an apple.  Go ahead, look behind you.  Yeah, that’s me.  What’s up?  Since H2H is played on a week-to-week basis, you can’t afford to take many goose eggs as Chipper nurses his hammy.  BTW, I once nursed a hammy and everyone kept asking me why I was breastfeeding a pig.

2. Don’t punt anything, but don’t buy steal-only guys.

What’s Ellsbury or Crawford or Pierre et al going to get you?  2 steals per week?  They’re not going to win you steals.  So you’re going to get 3 steals from Ellsbury one week, your opponent is going to get 5 steals from his whole team and you’re going to lose steals anyway.  Or you’re not going to get anything from the aforementioned et al’s then you’re going to lose that week too.  You just lost two weeks and the season hasn’t even started yet.  See what those steal-only guys get you?  That doesn’t mean to punt these categories.  It means draft a balanced team.  Guys that will get you speed and power.  Then if the weekend rolls around and you’re within breathing distance of winning speed, you pick up some steals off waivers to try and win it.  If someone is going against you and you punt steals, then you’re giving them one category.  Are they giving you categories?  No offense, you seem like a good person, but I wouldn’t give you any categories.  There will be weeks when you’ll be out of the running for steals (pun point!) then you can make the decision to punt at that point (punt point!).

3. Starters, Starters, Starters…

If you can’t beat them with quality, you beat them with quantity.  Chances are you should be able to win Ks and Wins every week with this drafting strategy.  Then if you can win Saves, you’re only dealing with WHIP and ERA.  Figure at least once in a while your opponent is going to lose ERA or WHIP on their own doing.  Figure a few times you’ll win ERA and WHIP on your own doing.  So in roto I say take a late round flier on possible saves or a starter, with H2H, I say always take a starter.  Then another starter, then another.  Take them until you can’t take anymore.  This also means to wait even longer for starters.  Pretty self-explanatory, but for those who like self-explanatory things explained.  You don’t need a top starter when you’re throwing lots of junk out there anyway.

4. The Waivers are Your Oysters.

Don’t like Juan Rivera’s match-ups this week.  As Frida used to say, hasta luego, Rivera.  I take this approach in roto too, but in H2H it’s even more pronounced.  Besides some of your top hitters and pitchers, everyone’s fluid.  To mix metaphors and sense, the waiver wire is your own personal Idaho filled with potatoes and you’re an Irishman.

The other day I went over my fantasy baseball strategy for snake drafts.  Lots of the strategy there also applies here.  If you ask me — and you kinda did ask me by reading this shizz — auction drafts are where it’s at, yo!  You get in a room with your best fantasy baseball buddies.  The guys you haven’t seen since last year’s draft.  The guys you don’t want to see until next year’s draft.  A few guys you actively despise.  One guy, and there’s always one, has his phone on vibrate just in case the missus calls about Petey, their sick Schnauzer.  Then you have the guy who will go the extra dollar for (fill-in favorite player from his favorite team).  You know he’s his favorite player because he’s wearing his jersey.  You have the guy who brings only Cheetos and turns everything he touches orange, and, if he touches something that was already orange, he makes it oranger.  Finally, you have the guy who made plans at 5PM and begins to yell at everyone at 4PM that they’re taking too long.  And, it always turns out, this day is the best day of the year.  Auction draft day is better than your wedding day.  As for online auction drafts, they’re just a’ight.  Anyway, here’s some tried and true tips to help you through your auction fantasy baseball draft:

1. Early in the draft, throw out guys that you know you have no interest in that will cost others a lot.

Say Joe Mauer snuck into a 21 and under club with Joe Jonas’s ID and took your baby’s mama home.  Now you refuse to draft him.  So the first name you should nominate is Mauer and let others overspend on him.  You don’t want high-priced pitching?  Nominate Lincecum.  You think Kinsler’s overrated?  Nominate him.  You get the idea.  Moving on…

2. Go the extra dollar if you really want someone.

When you get to the end of the auction, no one has any flippin’ idea what they spent to get a guy.  If you want Matt Capps and every auction value article you’ve read says he’s worth $2 and the bidding’s just gone to $3, go to $4 if you need a closer.  It’s your team; you need certain guys whether they’re overpriced or not.

3. You want to be “rich” with auction money.

You won’t always have the most money at the draft, but, whenever possible, you want to.  The more money you have A) The better leverage you have attaining any guy you might want. B) You can get great buys late in the draft when no one else has any money.  Invariably, someone will throw out, say, Dexter Fowler for a dollar (or some player that they think they can sneak through).  Then you get Fowler for $2 and everyone in the draft room groans, wishing they still had some money.  At your draft, you want to be like the little tuxedoed guy from Monopoly.  In fact, dress like him for your draft.

4. Decent catchers and closers are even easier to acquire in auctions.

In a snake draft, you never know when the Doumit, Iannetta, Dotel, Capps or whoever is going to be drafted.  The beauty of the auction is you can have anyone.  In my experience, you should wait until most of the teams have filled up their closers or catcher(s) slot then you nominate some one dollar beauts.

5. Keep track of who other people want.

The beauty of the auction is you know exactly what everyone else is thinking.  If Joe Schmohawk goes to $12 on Furcal and you get him for $13, keep JS in mind when you’re looking to trade Furcal after his hot April.  If someone groans when you get McLouth, keep it in mind.  Unless it’s the same guy who’s been eating nothing but Cheetos for ten hours.  Then it might just be gas.